


Nine Times Out Of Ten

by carriecmoney



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 11:56:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2467457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carriecmoney/pseuds/carriecmoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's someone with a really good singing voice on the floor below Marco, and it floats up the vent for him to listen to. There's also a really cute waiter at the local pizzeria that doesn't do home deliveries. It would be really, outrageously stupid if they were the same person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nine Times Out Of Ten

**Author's Note:**

> {This is inspired by one of those tumblr AU posts, specifically one with AUs where they know each other but they don't know each other. I made up this prompt myself, though - "there's a person with a really good singing voice on the floor below and it floats up the vent and you should complain to maintenance about it but it's such a pretty voice ALSO there's a really cute waiter at the local pizzeria that you wish did home deliveries".
> 
> The band this one is based on is Nickel Creek, and the songs mentioned are [The Fox](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk3O38cXQOI) and [Green and Gray](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYmDXWPPBdI), but please listen to Nickel Creek. The mandolin player in my headcanon Jean in a lot of ways, including his body language and what his voice sounds like.
> 
> [tumblr](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com) [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/carriecmoney)}

To call Marco’s apartment complex ‘lively’ would be an understatement. There was always something banging in the building, whether it was the repairman, a house party at three in the morning, or the couple who left their window open. It almost felt like a college dorm, especially on days with pretty weather when everyone had their doors propped open to let the breeze whistle through and shouted conversations across the outdoor landings. Marco kept to himself, though, weaving between neighbors to hide in his own three-room flat.

He wasn’t safe even there, of course. The building being the piece of shit that it was, the ventilation shafts conducted noise better than cold air, and the echoes of the apartments above and below him filtered in at any time of the day. They weren’t distinct enough to tell who was on the fifth floor and who was on the first, but after months of midnight analysis, Marco had filtered out the different groups of sound. There was the loud couple – they never seemed to be arguing, just yelling about pasta consistency and walking the dog and where are my keys? – who were Marco’s morning companions as he fried his eggs and ground his coffee, comforting in their own raucous way. If he had a day off and stayed home past ten, explosions would barrel down the vent, always making him jump. He had no idea who was crazy enough to have a volatile chemistry lab in a crowded apartment building, but all he ever heard from them were the deep booms of experiments gone wrong – or, even worse, right. On the weekends he didn’t have to work the night shift, there was always a party on the chute, packed to the brim and clawing at Marco’s head. Those were the only nights Marco dragged his armchair over to muffle the vent, no matter if it threw off his apartment’s temperature. The noise of the couple was fine, but the bass and heartbeats of a party was just too much.

His favorite neighbor, though, was unpredictable in his appearance. Sometimes he was there for every afternoon as Marco came home from a day shift or left for the night; sometimes Marco wouldn’t hear him for weeks until he harmonized with the breakfast couple on a Tuesday. And he sang.

The volume of his voice flexed in and out – walking around the apartment (Marco liked to imagine him cleaning). He had a higher voice for a guy, a tang to it, and it reminded Marco of hardwood. It was a dumb metaphor, one Marco would never air, but living in his apartment while his neighbor sang was like walking in the trees behind his childhood home, even though he could rarely make out the words.

The singer was the only reason he didn’t report the vent to maintenance, despite the concerning explosions and the four am headaches. He was curious as to which of the elevator faces was behind the voice, of course, but without even knowing which floor any of them were on, he had next to no way of discovering the singer’s name. So he just listened and hummed along, a step behind.

* * *

Marco was a police officer for the city, mostly doing irregular plainsclothes work where a uniform would be an unwelcome addition. It meant that not as many people knew about the gun in his car, and restaurants rarely gave him and his partner Annie the police discount – unless they went out with other officers.

“So, this is where you two disappear to most lunches, huh?” Reiner said, taking off his hat and looking around the hole-in-the-wall pizzeria. “It’s cute.”

“Not as cute as the real reason we keep coming here.” Marco grunted and jerked around to Annie, eyes wide and nostrils flaring. The corner for her mouth twitched up. Reiner laughed, loud and barrel-chested; Bertl next to him raised his eyebrows.

Before Marco could fight it, though, a hostess came up to them with a smile. “Hi! Dining in?”

Annie took over, nodding at the waitress. “Yes, just the four of us.” The hostess nodded and took four menus off the stack at the end of the bar and led them back to a corner table, Reiner and Bertl taking the bench half while and Annie and Marco sat in the chairs, Marco avoiding any and all eye contact.

As soon as the hostess left them, though, Reiner leant forward over his menu to conspire with Annie. “So who’s the cute one we care about?” Marco groaned and buried his warm face in his hands. Annie snorted.

“He’s the one coming our way, probably.” Marco jerked his head up, ran a hand through his hair. Bertl pressed the heel of his thumb to his mouth across the table, droopy eyes crinkled up.

The waiter came up from behind Marco, leaning on the table next to him as he smiled at Marco and Annie. “Fancy seeing y’all here.”

Marco smiled into the waiter’s orange eyes, heart thumping in his ears and disrupting his thoughts. “Oh, uh, yeah, well, of course!” He was smiling too much – shut the fuck _up_ , Bodt – Annie kicked him under the table. He blinked and broke their eye contact. The waiter shook his head a little and turned to the other two, color high on his face.

“I see you brought officers this time.”

“Coworkers.” Annie smiled, close-lipped. “We’re cops, too.”

The waiter blinked, flicked his eyes at Marco. “Oh? Well that’s cool.” He cleared his throat and pulled out his pad. “Anyway, what can I get y’all to drink?”

Marco barely squeaked out his unsweet tea order, and as soon as the waiter turned his (attractive) back on them, Marco’s face went back in his hands. Reiner chuckled across the table.

“Annie, I can’t believe you never told me how bad our boy here has it for the pizza guy!”

“You had to see it to understand.” Annie patted Marco’s elbow. “He’s hopeless.”

“Now, I dunno about that.” Marco peeked from between his fingertips at a smirking Reiner. “That look on his face when you said we were cops was dirty as homemade sin.” Marco squawked, but there was the waiter again, four Mason jars balanced in his hands. Marco ducked his head down and tugged on his bangs as he handed them around, leaning his hip against the table by Marco as he pulled his pad back out, butt right in Marco’s field of vision. He sat up shock straight, glad that his freckles and his darker skin kept his blush from showing. The waiter wasn’t that lucky.

“Y’all decided what you want, then?” he asked, scratching the line of his undercut with the butt of his pen. Reiner and Annie were distracted by making faces at each other, so Bertl rolled his eyes and ordered for them – years of night shifts at the station teach you everyone’s pizza tastes. The waiter nodded as he wrote – flashed a smile at Marco. “I already know what you want.” He winked and ended the order with a jab of his pen, pushing off the table and walking back to the bar and the pizza oven behind it.

Lucky for Marco, Bertl was the only one who caught that wink, but he still gave Marco a hard look across the table. Marco snarled a hand in his hair.

“We come here a lot, okay?”

Bertl snorted. “Sure, whatever you say.” He turned the conversation to baseball then, and Marco sighed.

* * *

A few Mondays after Reiner and Bertl’s trip to the pizzeria, Marco got off shift at dinnertime, exhausted from a day of crowd control at the lilac festival downtown, and remembered he hadn’t gone grocery shopping since April. He was halfway to the pizzeria before he even decided on what kind of food he wanted.

He’d never been there in the evenings before. It was a different animal, the sun on the other side of the storefront and too low for its gold to hit the street. Marco took a seat at the maple bar, glancing around at the familiar chalkboards, the warm wood paneling, the local art for sale, lit by the hanging lanterns instead of sunlight that cast different shadows. The clientele were different, too – less suits and ties and more flannel. Marco couldn’t hear it at first over the table jabber, but as he got accustomed to the sound and scanned the beer menu (all local stuff), he noticed that the music wasn’t the usual ambient soundtrack, but pinpointed. He looked to the back of the dining room to find his and Annie’s usual back table taken by a trio, two sitting on the thin table and one standing to the side. Marco turned on his stool to watch them, smile tugging at his hockey scar, elbow propped on the raised lip of the bar.

They were just playing at the moment, the three instruments rotating as the focal, from the standing violinist with the blond scrub ponytail, to the dark guitarist with a foot propped up on the bench to support his guitar on his knee, to the mandolinist stomping on a chair with the beat, smile wide and eyes closed under a bleached undercut–

Marco spun around too fast and banged his knee on the bar, breath hot and eyes wide. The bartender looked up at the bang – he could give Bertl a run for his money in the tall department – and raised an eyebrow at Marco. “You okay there, kid?”

“Yep, fine.” Marco tugged on the baby hair behind his ear. “So, what’s with the band?”

The bartender smiled. “Well, we call it Live Music Monday on the door, but really it’s letting the staff practice outside of their garages.” Marco’s nose wrinkled on his smile. “These kids are one of the better groups, though. You picked a good Monday to come by.” Marco glanced over his shoulder at the three of them, feeding off each other and oblivious to their audience. “Can I get you something while you listen?”

Marco got his usual pizza and the bartender’s recommendation of a beer, sipping at it as he stole looks at the corner band. Their earlier jam session had faded into an actual song, with the guitarist singing and the violinist offering harmony when he could break from his chinrest. It was a bright, folksy song about foxes and geese that had most of the pizzeria patrons tapping along and grinning. Marco’s toes kept time with his lunchtime waiter’s, eyes drawn to his bent head, wide smile, long fingers dancing over the frets. The other two may have been the singers, but the mandolin was the melody, high notes bleeding into the heart pine floorboards.

Around when the bartender slid his pizza across the counter, a monster struggled through the door in the shape of an instrument case big enough to hold the two women carrying it in. Marco watched them weave through the tables, clipping a few corners, before the boys in the corner could untangle themselves enough to help them out. The break in the music broke Marco’s spell – he looked down to see the bottom of his glass. Huh.

The monster was actually a bass – the first one Marco had seen in person. They had to shove the neighboring table aside for it, blocking the way to the bathrooms. The Asian woman took position behind it, nodding to the trio as she adjusted its lean. The white girl waved them off and slipped over to the bar, taking the empty stool next to Marco.

“Hey, Mike, how’s it been?” She leant on the bar and grinned at the bartender. He rolled his eyes and handed her a specials menu.

“It _was_ a good night.” She stuck her tongue out at him and sat back on the stool. “What’d the kids promise Mikasa this time to get her to come out?”

“A case of that fudge y’all’ve got hidden in the freezer.” The deep thumps of the bass sounded out from behind them; they all turned to watch the bassist warm up, head bowed so her hair obscured all of her face but her little smile. The girl by Marco sighed, slumping against the bar.

The bartender slid a glass across the counter to her, a bright pink popsicle stick-up in it. She swung around to it and attacked, eyes following the bartender’s movements as he pouted another beer and placed it in front of Marco, flipping the empty glass out of the way in the same movement. She blinked and registered Marco’s presence with a pop off her popsicle.

“Hey. I don’t know you.” Marco bit his lip on a laugh.

“Well then, we’re even.” He took a swallow of his new beer. “I’m Marco.”

“Sasha.” She held her non-popsicle fist up for a bump. Marco laughed against and knocked it. “You come here often, handsome?”

Marco laughed, rubbing his ear. “Well, I come here a lot for lunch, but this is my first time being here at night.” She gave her popsicle a big lick. “Obviously that’s not the case with you.” She grinned behind her popsicle.

“You’re a quick one, ain’t ya?” She leant her elbow on the bar, gesturing to the band (they were playing again, guitarist as the vocals, bass thumping away) “The one on bass, that’s my girl. The guitar’s my girl’s brother, the violin’s my girl’s brother’s best friend, and the mandolin is-” She frowned. “Uh, Jean. The French kind?”

Marco laughed – _Jean_. “Do the others have names, or is it just French Jean?” She made a face at him and launched into more detailed explanations of the band (apparently called Butterfly Smoothie this week), telling stories of ‘her girl’s’ adventures as guest star and anecdotes from their lives together. Sasha kept Marco laughing through his pizza and his third beer as the four under discussion played away, rotating out singers like cups over a ball. Marco stopped paying attention after a while, the songs blending with the conversation, a backdrop to Sasha’s stories.

The mandolin started a new melody, bittersweet and minor. The guitar and violin followed shortly after, Mikasa resting her temple on the neck of her bass, eyes closed. Jean crossed his legs and curled more around his instrument, mouth opening to sing lead for the first time that night. Marco watched his lips move, words not quite arching across the restaurant, but timbre and tone making it. Marco’s eyebrows drew together.

“I think I’ve heard that voice before,” he said after a verse and a chorus. Sasha broke off her sentence to follow Marco’s gaze to Jean.

“Really? Cause, like, Jean never sings in public. Practice, sure, but the more people ‘round, the more he sinks behind that tiny-ass mandolin.” She frowned. “Kinda curious as to why he’s singin’ now.”

“Because they’ve blocked us out.” Mikasa jerked her bow across her strings in the second chorus, eyes still closed. “Can’t you tell?”

Sasha smiled, one corner deeper than the other. “Aren’t they precious.”

They fell silent, watching the quartet play, Marco caught in the flashes of Jean’s uneven teeth, in half-heard lyrics about colors and missed chances. Marco held his eyes closed on the blink, trying to place where he knew that high note from –

He opened his eyes, staring at the rocking of the wooden chair under Jean’s pounding feet. Hardwood.

He swallowed and leant in to Sasha. “Do you know how long this goes on?”

Sasha shrugged and pulled out her phone to check the time. “They usually wrap it up around seven, and it’s twenty ‘til now.” She turned her screen off and set it on the bar behind her, flipping her bangs out of her face to smile at Marco. “You gonna stick around until then?”

His mouth twitched. “After all you’ve told me, I don’t see how I couldn’t at least say hi.” Her whole face smiled with her as the instruments fell away, along with much of the background chatter.

_I want you to love me, he whispers, unable to speak_   
_And he wonders aloud why feelings so strong make the body so weak_   
_Then he awoke, now he's scared to death somebody heard_   
_If it was you, and you know her, please don't say a word_

They trailed off, Jean biting his lip on the last chord. It was going to be a long twenty minutes.

The set did end, though, to a smattering of applause and a pointed dash across the pizzeria by the guitarist (his name was Eren) to set a “Tips for the Band” jar by the door. When they started packing up their instruments, Sasha yanked Marco off his stool and over to them – he really shouldn’t’ve had that fourth beer. He stumbled a little after her, but it only took a dozen steps to cross the pizzeria.

“Hey y’all, I got a new friend!” Marco waved at the band, shoulders hunched and arm kept tight in Sasha’s grip. Jean looked up from his mandolin case, smile tugging – smile falling.

“Wha? You?” Jean’s orange eyes flew wide. “You’re _here?_ ”

“Uh, yeah? Sorry?” Marco scratched the back of his neck with his free hand. The other four stared at them, various shades of confusion around the circle.

Eren was the one to break it, gesturing between the two of them with his guitar pick. “Okay. What _exactly_ am I missing here?”

“Oh – I’m just a lunch regular of his. I’ve never been here for dinner, that’s all.” Jean was still thrown, staring at him. Marco smiled, shrugged. “Surprise?”

Eren groaned and rolled his eyes. “God, Jean, I thought this was, like, a really bad ex or something.” Eren punched him in the shoulder, waking him up enough that Jean growled at him. Eren snorted. “That’s better.”

The novelty of Marco could wait for most of them until their instruments were stowed away – Mikasa especially – but Jean stayed put, brow furrowed and eyes narrowed. Marco rubbed his arm where Sasha had released him to go help her girl wrestle the monster down, staring at Jean’s shoulder.

“I, uh. I like your band.” Marco coughed. “You play good.”

“Yeah?” Jean blinked. “Oh, thanks.” Jean shook his hair out, huffing. “Look, I’m not sure if we’ve ever really met – like, I mean, I’ve never introduced myself, I know who _you_ are, I learned your name after the second transaction, but like-” Jean slapped his hands to his head and groaned. Marco laughed, rolling a shoulder back. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s all right.” Jean flipped around to the mandolin case on the table behind him, Marco following to lean in Jean’s usual spot. Jean’s face was on _fire_. “I might be able to one-up you on the creepy, anyway.”

Jean looked up, orange under bleach blond. “Oh yeah?”

Marco sighed, rubbing his nose. “You don’t happen to live in Park Place Apartments, do you?”

Jean stared, lips parted. “Is this a cop thing?”

Marco started. “No! No, of course not, I’m not gonna arrest you, I’m out of jurisdiction here.” Jean snorted, head ducking, and Marco’s mouth quirked up. “It’s just that, well, I live there too, and – did you notice that the vent by the door doubles as an intercom?”

Jean groaned, rolling his eyes. “Ugh, oh my God, yes, like who the fuck sets off explosions in their living room? Or has house parties at three in the goddamn morning? Or yells in Spanish at every soccer game, motherfucker-” Jean froze, eyes wide. “Oh no.”

Marco tugged on his bangs, face burning. “Well, I had wondered what everyone else heard from me.” He swallowed. “I’ll turn down the TV next time I watch a match.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jean moaned, sitting down hard on the chair behind him. Marco crossed his arms and shrugged.

“It’s not _that_ bad. You sing a lot, you know?” Jean breathed in, eyes circles and heavy eyebrows hidden in his bangs. “No, I like it! It’s nice, it’s like-” _oak leaves and birch bark-_ “well, it’s, uh, it’s nice. I like your voice.”

Jean flopped forward on the table, head down, fingers a bare inch from Marco’s ass. Marco swallowed. Really should’ve kept it to three beers.

“Yo asshole.” Eren nudged Jean’s ribs with his shoe. “We’re heading out. You need a ride?” Jean flopped a hand at him without lifting his face from the table. Eren grunted, eyebrow raised. “Be that way, bitch.”

Marco raised a hand. “I can give him a ride, if he needs one.” Jean shot up, but Marco shrugged. “We _do_ live in the same building.”

“What, really? Killer.” Eren slung the strap of his guitar case around his torso and grabbed Armin. “See ya later, loser!”

Jean was shaking his head at Marco, though, so Marco leant in to whisper, “Don’t tell them, because it’ll look bad, but I _might_ need a driver home, anyway.”

Jean’s smile pulled at a corner of his mouth. “Can’t you call a squad car or something?”

Marco recoiled. “What, and have them rub in my face that I got drunk on a Monday for the rest of the month? No thank you.” Jean barked out a laugh, jerking forward. Marco’s eyes flicked up to where Mikasa and Sasha were waiting, bass balanced between them. Sasha tilted her head.

“You two okay?”

“We’re great.” Marco waved them off. “Don’t worry about us, you’ve got enough problems with that thing.”

The two girls exchanged a glance, then shrugged and got to work carting the bass out the door. Jean closed his mandolin case and stood, bouncing on his toes. Marco fished for his keys.

The ten minute ride back to their building was filled with complaints about their shared neighbors and their shitty complex, Jean’s acidic humor coming out over the yelling couple, who were a lot more disturbing when you got home from band practice at around the time they woke up. They were still gossiping when they parked, paged into the building, took the stairs up – Jean was on the floor above Marco, but he said he needed the exercise.

At the door to Marco’s floor, they paused. “Well, uh. It’s good to finally meet you straight on, I guess.” Marco smiled, one shoulder shrugging, stomach tied up in knots. Jean swallowed, throat bobbing.

“Yeah, uh, same.” He juggled his mandolin case, held out his hand for a shake. Marco took it – the pads of his fingers were all callous – dropped it again. Jean shook his head and spun to go up the stairs; Marco put his hand on the doorknob. He’d barely turned it all the way when a big sigh echoed in the stairwell. He turned just as Jean hopped down the three stairs he’d made it up and backed Marco against the wall by the door, hand in his shirt and mouth over his. Marco moaned and cinched Jean close by hands on his waist, flipping them on the wall to pin Jean down and dip his tongue past those crooked teeth, Jean’s free hand sliding up and down his side, mandolin case thumping against Marco’s hip where he laced two fingers into a beltloop, his back arching into Marco’s chest.

Marco tore his mouth away from Jean’s, trailing up his jaw to his ear. “Your place or mine?”

Jean snorted, again, laughing into Marco’s shoulder, shaking against him. Marco laughed, too, after a moment, and pulled back enough to watch Jean’s face shift like sunlight through a forest canopy. He slit open his eyes, pupils dilated out to hide most of the orange.

“That was really not that funny. Sorry.” Marco shrugged and slid his hands up, down Jean’s arms, rubbing his working fingers over Jean’s string-flayed ones. “Yours is closer.”

“That is true.” Marco licked his dry lips and opened the stairwell door, leading Jean through it, both grinning, mandolin case tight in Jean’s grip.


End file.
